There are a number of different commercially available dispensers for dispensing products, such as paper towel products or wipes, that typically come in sheet form. One method of dispensing involves a “center-pull” mechanism, whereby the sheet material is removed from the center of a coreless roll. The sheet material is pulled through a restricted opening that frictionally resists the pulling motion from the user. This resistance results in the sheet material tearing away into individual sheets at predetermined points marked by partially severed lines.
One of the more common center-pull dispenser designs uses a cone or funnel shaped nozzle to provide the opening for resisting and dispensing the sheet material. This design provides a large initial entrance for the end of the sheet material roll that allows for easy insertion of the end of a new roll, while also having the restricted exit opening necessary to provide sufficient resistance to allow tearing of the perforations.
However, there are several deficiencies associated with existing center-pull dispenser designs. One deficiency of the conventional standard center-pull design is that the platform on which the web sits is typically planar or flat, with a funnel-shaped opening being formed in the platform that cooperates with a lower opening formed in the housing of the dispenser. Typically, the web that is used in the center-pull dispenser is a dry web as opposed to a pre-moistened web. One of the problems of using a pre-moistened web in this type of center-pull dispenser construction is that gravity pulls the moisture in the web roll itself down toward the bottom portion of the roll that sits on the platform or the like. This is understandable since gravitational forces will act on the liquid that wets the web since the liquid has a greater density than the fibrous web. The problems that result from this gravitational flow are two-fold, namely, first that the liquid that pools at the bottom of the web tends to drip from the bottom feed center-pull opening onto the ground and secondly, the upper portion of the web does not contain the same moisture level as the increasingly saturate bottom portion. This leads to the upper portion potentially drying out, while the bottom portion drips onto the ground which is undesirable since it may soil the ground or in any event leaves an unpleasant drip on the ground.
It is therefore desirable to provide a sheet material dispenser of a center-pull bottom feed design that is constructed so that pre-moistened webs can be used therein without experiencing the above drip phenomena.